Author Archives: Becky Pliego

About Becky Pliego

I am grateful because God, in His grace, called me out of darkness and into his admirable light. When I did not look for Him, He found me. When I was in a pit of sin, He rescued me. I am not walking this road alone, my family is always with me, and we love Him, because He loved us first.

How Do You Serve Warm Bread?

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You might be familiar with the setting: four moms waiting for their girls’ dancing class to be over while chatting about many trivial things. So, yes, I was there, except that the conversation was not trivial this time; the Lord had answered my prayer and He had opened a door for me to start sharing the gospel with them (one of them, a very nice hardcore atheist).

After many questions and many answers, I told them how the Gospel, the Kingdom of God, is like bread coming out of the oven and served with butter and honey on top, that for me that was an excellent way to describe it. They smiled, and one of them, the one who knew many “Christians” already looked at me and said, “I have never heard the Christian life, the gospel, described that way, with such an excitement, with such joy. But now I am thinking that many do not want to take that warm slice of bread with butter and honey because the hand that is offering it is so dirty, so filthy that you don’t dare to touch it, no matter how good and delicious the bread might be.”

I pray that as we have these ladies and their families over in our home in the weeks to come, as we open our lives before them, as we serve them, as we converse, as we extend our hands with the Gospel towards them, they will see clean hands reaching out to them. I pray they will have eyes to see how our hands and hearts have been cleansed by the Gospel, and then they too will take the Bread and eat, and have Life.

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” John 6:35

 

“Scripture teaches us that the gospel must be preached to creation, and declared to every nation. From this, some have falsely assumed that in between our sermons and declarations the gospel must be absent. But the gospel is always present because the Spirit is present around our tables, in our homes, and the Spirit is present because Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father. The Spirit fills the room with fumes, and gospel preaching flicks the lighter.” Grace Agenda Conference: Gospel Presence

Under His and by His grace,

Becky

Intrusive Grace

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Grace! We call for it,
We say we need it,
And at times we invoke her,
As if we were
Calling for a bird’s magic song
When we are called to
Repent and change,
But choose not.

Grace! We hide behind this word
All of our unrepentant sins,
All our dirty jokes,
Our open trespasses.
The limits we’ve
Intentionally broken and
We expect –demand– the rest of our
Brothers and sisters,
To love us.

Can’t they see,
Can’t they hear that we are
Saying “Grace”?
Grace!

Grace! We call for it
We say we need it
And at times it seems
That we are calling for it
As if we were calling
Our tamed dog.
“Sit here! Go out!
Move! Stay!”

Grace! Four letters.
Four letters that we have abused.
A short word in which we have
Hidden our responsibility,
A powerful word that we have vandalized,
We have striped it from its meaning.
We have used to hide cowardly our sins,
We have made it our flag to ask for tolerance.

Grace!
Grace!
Oh, Grace!

And when Grace,
True Grace comes.
It’s song is one of war.
It is never tamed.
It shatters our world.

Grace! True grace never asks
Permission to come in.
It is intrusive.
It rescues the one
who is in chains.
It opens the eyes of he
who loves darkness.
It gives life to the dead.

It is a light.
A bright light
That brings out all lies,
All bad habits,
And shameful behaviors.
All false reasonings,
And comfortable sins
Cannot hide from it.

Grace! It brings us to our knees,
to repentance.
It empowers us to fight
the good fight against
our flesh and sins.
It is like a strong wind that blows
where it wants.
Nothing can stop it.

Grace!
It is piercing.
It is painful.
It points us to our guilt
And then to the Cross.

That is Grace.

Grace destroys,
In order to build.

Becky

Thankful on my 42th Birthday

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Waking up to a new day is always good, and waking up to a new year is such an incredible blessing. I am so very grateful!

My heart bursts as I meditate in the many ways God has blessed my life, and again I can only say with a grateful and humble heart, “Why me, God?”

Today I am grateful for….

The lessons He has taught me, the sweet and the bitter ones.

For the many times He has drawn me to repentance and has forgiven my trespasses.

I am grateful for the friends He has given me, each one different, yet everyone very special, hand-tailored to help me grow in Christ.

Having friends that are much wiser than I am, friends who have taught me through their example -and have encouraged me- to hold my tongue, to pray more, to be humble, to be quiet, to persevere, to speak the truth in love, to stand firm in the Truth when the easiest way would be to do otherwise. I am grateful for each friend who has been there to teach me, to mentor me, to help me become the woman I am now. Thank you for living your lives as open books that I can read and from whom I learn so much. I love you, each one of you.

I am grateful for the years I have been given to serve breakfast, and lunch, and dinner to my 4 children. But even more, I am grateful that God gave me His Word to nourish their souls each day.

Now two more of my children are leaving to college and I am so grateful to see them ready to embrace what lies ahead. I am grateful for every hug, every kiss, every tear, every conversation, every song sang, and every melody played. As I hold them tight and I swallow hard, and tears fall I am more than anything else, grateful. So grateful for each moment shared together.

I am so grateful that when they were little ones God delivered me from the two words that kill the beautiful moments: “Hurry up!” Oh, how grateful I am that by his Grace, we learned to slow down. In a sense, it does feels that Time did fly by rapidly, but I am grateful it didn’t escape from our hands. We have lived fully and that is a blessing.

When I think of the many ways I have failed to fully trust and obey God, of the times I ignored the warnings He clearly showed me, I can only be grateful for the way He disciplined me and forgave me, and  held me. Oh how grateful I am that His sovereign hand never ceases to direct our ways even through our shortcomings!

That God is Sovereign overall, that He is in charge of my children’s stories, that I can rest assured that He will finish the work He has begun in them makes me burst in gratitude.

I am so grateful for my Man. For the way he has loved me and chose me day after day. I am blessed to be his and to know that he is mine.

I am grateful for the times of waiting. For the times of quiet. How much they have helped me grow!

For friends that pray.

For songs in the night.

For my little one that looks up to me with a smile and holds me tight. How much I love her and how much we still have to share! I am grateful for each moment that awaits for us and for the grace to live fully each day and every opportunity we’ll be given to make memories.

For the Church of Christ that knows no boundaries.

For bread in the oven and wine in the glasses, and friends and family to share it with.

God is good and His faithfulness endures forever.

To God be the glory!

Becky

How Do You Tell His Story to Your Children?

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As I read Psalm 145 this morning I kept thinking of the amazing privilege that we have as parents to tell God’s story to our children. We know that it is our responsibility before God to do so, but how are we doing that?

Go to Psalm 145 and meditate on it. Isn’t it a great psalm that teaches us how are we to tell our children about God’s wondrous works? This Psalm is a song of joy, of victory, of praise. I cannot imagine the Psalmist telling his children about the kingdom of God with a monotonous tone and making of that time the most boring of the day.

Consider for example, how would we speak to our children about “the might of God’s awesome deeds” (v.6)? Do we get excited when we “pour forth the fame of His abundant goodness”  (v.7)? Do we sing aloud in the car, in the kitchen, at church of his righteousness (v.7)?

When we tell them the good news that “the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” when we tell them that “He is good to all, and his mercy is over all He has made” (v.8-9), do we get excited? Or do we repeat those amazing truths as something that is already known by all Christians?

I get so excited (and so very grateful!) when I read that God wants me to “speak of the glory of his kingdom and of His power to my children” (v.10-12). Oh, what an amazing privilege! I don’t want to miss that opportunity! God has appointed us, parents, to make known to our children His mighty deeds (v. 11-12), all of them, those in the Bible, those in our lives, those in Church history, those in the community where He has placed us.

I want to tell my children over and over again that God’s Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom. That the gift of growing up in the Covenant is a treasure, a privilege, a gift like no other. That throughout all generations His dominion endures. Oh, to tell them a thousand times “how faithful our God is in all his words and how kind He is in all his works! (v.13).

When the trials come I want to encourage them with God’s word, I want to be ready to tell them how “the Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.” When times of hunger come, I want to encourage them with the Scriptures and remind them that He “gives food in due season,” and that He is extremely generous and opens His hand and delights in satisfying the desires of those who fear him (v.15-16, 19).

What a privilege it is to be able to tell them that “the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth!”  To share the gospel with the children that God gave me over the family table, in the car, in the porch is a delightful command from God. Isn’t it amazing that God has purposed that from this mouth that many times speaks ungraceful words shall come the most amazing news! Oh,  to be the one that tells them that “the Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.” I want to be ready. I don’t want to miss any of the opportunities that I have been given every day to do so.

“My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD,
and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.” (v.21)

Under His Sun and by Grace,

Becky

 

Homeschooling Conversations -Hundreds of Them-

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Photo credit: Lillian Rachel

Conversations about homeschooling, hundreds of them!- around coffee tables and the same questions over and over again (and I’ve wondered if there is a book out there entitled, “Questions to Ask a Homeschool Mom and her Children” that everyone has already read), and the looks, and the trying to persuade you to quit (for your children’s sake, and your own sanity), and the words: socialization, find-time-for-yourself, tolerance, really? have all been present every time. And of course I learned the correct answer to each of those questions, actually I had two kind of answers for each question: the simple, for the lady waiting on line in the supermarket or for the couple across our table in a business banquet; and the long one, for the moms that were also waiting with me for the gymnastic training or music lessons to be over.

And people asked all these questions and many looked down at us, and kept their eyes on us (even though they pretended not to be spying into our lives) because they were, in a certain way, expecting us to fail in this life experiment. So let me take a minute to answer the real question behind all those hundreds questions: Why did you start doing this?  To have smarter kids? No way. To have well socialized kids? Nope. So that they would not be “contaminated by the world.” Probably you haven’t realized that sin dwells in the heart of a lovely child, of a dad, of a mom; there is absolutely no need to look for it outside your own home. Or maybe you homeschooled your kids to keep them from all heart-breaking stories? No, no.  The reason to  start  -and persevere- on this journey has to be one that is so strong that becomes part of who you are. And what reason is strong enough to make us wake up early every morning, and help us keep pressing on when our heart faints and the tears run, and we know we have failed, and we just don’t know what lies ahead, but this: to bring up our children in the Covenant of God? Yes, yes! This is the real, strong reason behind the many books on the table, and the planners, and the board on the wall, and the mold growing in the cream-cheese in fridge (on purpose, of course). All these rhythms of life have become ours because we wanted -each day- to feed our children’s souls with God’s Word and hundreds of stories and we wanted to teach them to see the stars, and the ocean, and the Greeks, and the Aztecs, and Reubens, and Frida Khalo all through the light of the Scriptures. All through one lens: Truth. We wanted to live the daily, beautiful, God-given life together under God’s grace, under His Covenant.

And we are grateful, so incredibly grateful for the work of the Spirit in each one of our children and for the many ways in which He has faithfully kept them in His Covenant. We rejoice in our loving God and in His ways. We can proclaim with a loud voice: God is indeed faithful! He delights to keep His covenant. He is a God that loves to save children, families, and bless the generations of the righteous.

It’s already summer and this one will be different. We’ll pack the suitcases of two of our children who will be moving  2626.54 miles away from home, and I already miss them but to know that they are walking in the Covenant of Grace is enough to make my heart swell with gladness and rest assured that God will finish what He started in them -in us, in me-

“Wisdom is an ambitious woman. In Proverbs 8 she describes how she’s a catch. The knowledge to get power, wealth, competence and circumspection is hers, yet she delights to teach from her home. When Jesus says, Wisdom is vindicated by her children, his statement assumes that Wisdom is a homeschooling mom.” Dr. Michael Collender

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky

Searching for a Recipe: Best Thick, Soft, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies-

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Double Chocolate Chip Cookie

Yes, I have a big craving, and not, I am not pregnant. But I am searching for the perfect recipe for soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies that remain true to its name -even after they are not longer warm. I have tried several recipes but they all are thick, soft and chewy only when you eat them right from the oven, and then… hardness…

If I were in Moscow, Idaho, I wouldn’t have that problem because I would buy all my cookies from the Sisters Cookies Company, which are amazing. But since I don’t live there -and I can’t order food from another country- and I love thick, soft, chewy cookies I need to find a recipe to bake right here in my own oven.

Now, by any chance do you happen to have the recipe that won’t break my heart? 😉 Would you share it us in the comments below? Maybe the link?

Thank you!

Becky